Posts Tagged ‘Michael Borek’

It’s been more than a quarter century by now, but my recollection of reading Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis in my freshman-year college European lit class remains fresh. Even for a cocky college kid, reading about Gregor Samsa’s transformation into an insect was unnerving. There’s nothing quite as creepy as Kafka’s famous character in Michael Borek’s photography exhibit [...]

It’s been more than a quarter century by now, but my recollection of reading Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis in my freshman-year European literature class remains fresh. Even for a cocky college kid, reading about Gregor Samsa’s transformation into a “dung beeeeetle”—as my eminent, French-accented professor enthusiastically pronounced the creature—was unnerving.
There’s nothing quite as absurd, or [...]

As a teenager in Prague, Michael Borek recalls seeing "a one-armed man in a shabby coat schlepping a tripod and a large-view camera." It was Josef Sudek, a celebrated Czech photographer. Borek bought a book of his images and immediately fell in love. Now, decades later, Borek is mounting an exhibition of works that pay [...]

Locally, the past year has been a good one for two types of photography—landscape work and documentary. It's also been notable for several smart shows at the American University Museum and Goethe-Institut, but the sad closing of a venerable venue of good photography, Bethesda's Fraser Gallery. Here's my list of the 10 best photographic exhibits in [...]

On Tuesday, Bethesda-based photographer Michael Borek opens a solo exhibit at the Multiple Exposures Gallery in Alexandria. The exhibit, “Effective Immediately,” features 26 images made in an abandoned lace factory in Scranton, Pa.
Borek was born and raised in Prague, Czechoslovakia, and worked there as a freelance interpreter and translator. After the fall of communism, he [...]